Antivirus pcmag

Excellent hands-on malware protection score. Simple ransomware protection. Always on if no other antivirus is present. CONS Poor results in phishing protection test. Awkward scan scheduling. SmartScreen Filter works only in Microsoft browsers. CONS No test scores from independent labs Mediocre score for blocking malware downloads No protection against malicious or fraudulent URLs Lacks features found in competing free products.

Tough, effective two-way firewall. Bonus features. CONS No antivirus lab test results. Lacks some antivirus features. No protection for malicious or fraudulent websites. Behavioral detection tars good and bad programs in testing. Personal data protection fails in testing.

CONS Configuration not optimized for security by default No test scores from independent labs Poor scores in our hands-on tests Terrible score in our phishing protection test Many utilities require upgrade Ransomware protection ineffective Behavioral detection flagged both good and bad programs. Your antivirus should definitely have the ability to root out existing malware, but its ongoing task is to prevent ransomware, botnets, Trojans, and other types of nasty programs from getting a foothold.

All of the antivirus programs in this collection offer real-time malware protection. Some take the fight to the browser, working hard to ensure you never even browse to a malware-hosting site, or get fooled into turning over your credentials to a phishing site. If free antivirus tools are so great, why should anybody pay? For one thing, quite a few of these products are free only for noncommercial use; if you want to protect your business, you must pony up for the paid edition.

At that point, you should probably consider upgrading to a full security suite. After all, it's your business's security on the line. Even for personal use, most for-pay antivirus tools offer more than their free counterparts—sometimes a lot more. For example, ZoneAlarm's paid edition adds protection against malicious and fraudulent websites that the free version lacks. And Panda reserves quite a few features for paying customers, among them firewall protection, application control, cross-platform support, and detection of insecure Wi-Fi connections.

In addition, many companies don't offer full-scale tech support for users of the free edition. The first time you need extra help digging a particularly stubborn piece of malware out of your system, you might regret the lack of support. Around the world, researchers at independent antivirus testing labs spend their days putting antivirus tools to the test. Some of these labs regularly release public reports on their findings.

Security companies typically pay for the privilege of being included in testing. In return, the labs supply them with detailed reports that can help improve their products. The number of labs that include a particular vendor serves as a measure of significance. In each case, the lab considered the product important enough to test, and the vendor felt the price was worthwhile.

The labs don't necessarily test a vendor's free product, but most vendors pack full protection into the free product, enhancing premium versions with additional features. In addition to carefully perusing results from the independent labs, we also run our own hands-on malware protection test. We expose each antivirus to a collection of malware samples, including a variety of different malware types, and note its reaction.

Typically, the antivirus will wipe out most of the samples on sight, and detect some of the remaining ones when we try to launch them. We derive a malware blocking score from 0 to 10 points based on how thoroughly the antivirus protects the test system from these samples. Since we use the same samples month after month, the malware-blocking test doesn't measure a product's ability to detect brand-new threats.

In a separate test, we attempt to download malware from very new malicious URLs supplied by London-based testing lab MRG-Effitas , typically less than a few days old. We note whether the antivirus blocked all access to the URL, wiped out the malicious payload during download, or did nothing. If you're interested in learning more about our testing techniques, you're welcome to read more about how we test security software.

If you do have a little cash in your budget for security, the best paid antivirus software does offer more and better protection. If not, try a few of these free tools and see which one you like best. Worried you might already be infected? Check out our article on the signs you have malware. By Neil J. Rubenking 5 Dec , a. Top Picks. Best For Comprehensive Free Security. Kaspersky Security Cloud Free offers full-scale malware protection along with some suite-level features.

It gets superb scores from the independent labs, and it won't cost you a penny. Best For Few-Frills Protection. PROS Excellent scores from three labs Very good scores in all our hands-on tests Free Boot-time scan removes persistent malware Some useful bonus features CONS Initial scan slower than average Fixing found performance issues requires upgrade Boot-time scan can be very slow.

Best For No Frills Protection. Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition includes the same core antivirus technology found in the commercial Bitdefender Antivirus, focusing on the essential task of antivirus protection with minimal add-ons.

Best For Many Security Components. Avira Free Security goes beyond basic antivirus with dozens of security-related utilities. However, many require payment for full functionality. Microsoft Windows Defender Security Center protects Windows 10 PCs that have no other antivirus protection, and it has significantly improved in lab test results and our own hands-on tests. See it. Best for Excellent Lab Test Scores.

Kaspersky Security Cloud Free. Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition. Our Pick. Excellent 4. Good 3. About Neil J. He was present at the formation of the Association of Shareware Professionals, and served on its board of directors. By , he had become PC Magazine 's technical editor, and a coast-to-coast telecommuter.

His "User to User" column supplied readers with tips and solutions on using DOS and Windows, his technical columns clarified fine points in programming and operating systems, and his utility articles over forty of …. More From Neil J. Avast One Essential. Editors' Choice Excellent 4. Avira Free Security. Microsoft Windows Defender Security Center. CONS Few and poor independent lab tests scores. Phishing protection ineffective. Ransomware detection results mixed. PROS Excellent scores in independent lab tests and in our own tests.

Data Protector defends against ransomware. Includes online backup, firewall, exploit protection, password manager, and other bonus features. No multi-license pricing. PROS Excellent scores in our hands-on tests and independent lab tests. Protects against ransomware, keyloggers, and exploits. Remote management for up to 10 PCs or Macs. CONS Advanced features require uncommon tech expertise.

Parental control and webcam protection limited. PROS Good scores in independent lab tests and our tests. Behavior-based DeepGuard detects brand-new malware, including ransomware. Advanced network protection. Streamlined, simple interface.

CONS Ransomware protection failed against one real-world sample in testing. No antiphishing component. PROS Excellent score in our hands-on malware protection test. Protects against banking Trojans, keyloggers, ransomware, and exploits. Includes spam filter.

CONS So-so score in our phishing protection test. Mixed scores in independent lab tests. Ransomware protection only partially effective. CONS Poor score in our hands-on malware protection test Some poor scores in independent lab tests Social network link protection choices dated No multi-device volume licensing. Across the country, school districts are gradually launching a very different back-to-school experience, mostly online.

With most classes online, and many teachers and districts not familiar with the technology, malware coders will have a field day. We call it antivirus, but in truth it's unlikely you'll get hit with an actual computer virus. Malware these days is about making money, and there's no easy way to cash in on spreading a virus. Ransomware and data-stealing Trojans are much more common, as are bots that let the bot-herder rent out your computer for nefarious purposes.

Modern antivirus utilities handle Trojans, rootkits, spyware, adware, ransomware, and more. PCMag has reviewed more than 40 different commercial antivirus utilities, and that's not even counting the many free antivirus tools. Out of that extensive field we've named four Editors' Choice products and honored several more with a four-star rating. If you have malware , one of the products listed above should take care of the problem. Some nonstandard commercial antivirus utilities proved effective enough to earn an excellent four-star rating alongside their more traditional counterparts.

VoodooSoft VoodooShield bases its protection on suppressing all unknown programs while the computer is in a vulnerable state, such as when it's connected to the internet, and also acts to detect known malware. The Kure resets the computer to a known safe state on every reboot, thereby eliminating any malware.

These are interesting approaches, but not directly comparable with traditional antivirus tools. You may notice that two listed products earned just 3. Of the five current products rating 3. That distinction earned them a place in the list. These commercial products offer protection beyond the antivirus built into Windows 10; the best free antivirus utilities also offer more than Windows does. However, Microsoft Windows Defender Security Center is looking better and better lately, with some very good scores from independent testing labs.

The combination of good lab scores and a great score in our hands-on malware protection test was enough to bring it up to 3. It doesn't appear in this roundup of commercial antivirus products, naturally.

We take the results reported by independent antivirus testing labs very seriously. The simple fact that a company's product shows up in the results is a vote of confidence, of sorts. It means the lab considered the product significant, and the company felt the cost of testing was worthwhile.

Of course, high scores in the tests are also important. We've devised a system for aggregating their results to yield a rating from 0 to We also subject every product to our own hands-on test of malware protection, in part to get a feeling for how the product works.

Depending on how thoroughly the product prevents malware installation, it can earn up to 10 points for malware protection. Our malware protection test necessarily uses the same set of samples for months. To check a product's handling of brand-new malware, we test each product using extremely new malware-hosting URLs supplied by MRG-Effitas , noting what percentage of them it blocked.

Products get equal credit for preventing all access to the malicious URL and for wiping out the malware during download.